What About the Girls? Exploring the Gender Data Gap in Talent Development

Abstract

Although there is an extensive literature about talent development, the lack of data pertaining to females is problematic. Indeed, the gender data gap can be seen in practically all domains including sport and exercise medicine. Evidence-based practice is the systematic reviewing of the best evidence in order to make informed choices about practice. Unfortunately, it may be that the data collected in sport is typically about male experiences, and not female; a rather unfortunate omission given that approximately half of the population is made up of women. When female athletes are underrepresented in research there are issues when making inferences about data collected in male dominated research domains to inform practice and policy for female athletes. In parallel, female sport participation is continually increasing worldwide. Recognizing the importance of evidence-based practice in driving policy and practice, and reflecting the gender data gap that is a consistent feature of (almost) all other domains, we were interested in examining whether a gender data gap exists in talent development research. The results suggest that a gender data gap exists in talent development research across all topics. Youth athlete development pathways may be failing to recognize the development requirements of females, particularly where female sports may be borrowing systems that are perceived to work for their male counterparts. In order to ensure robust evidence based practice in female youth sport there is a need to increase the visibility of female athletes in talent development literature.

Talent Research in Sport 1990–2018: A Scoping Review

“…Outside of, or in combination with, the traditional expertise discipline on cognitive psychology, this scoping review suggests a range of other opportunities for future work. In particular, researchers are encouraged to devote greater attention to female athletes since the constraints and developmental models may differ from their male counterparts (e.g., females physically mature earlier and operate in a system with fewer financial incentives and less support, Handelsman, 2017;Curran et al, 2019). The historical discrepancy of funding for female sports could explain the limited available research; however, with the growth of female sports, it is imperative to better understand factors related to female-specific talent development.…”

The nature of formative physical activities and sports in the development of senior volleyball players

“…This finding also highlighted the importance of considering sex differences in analyses of participants' developmental pathways. Female athletes are clearly underrepresented across all topics of talent development research and results are extrapolated to females without due consideration of the impact of that transfer52 . Therefore, failing to account for the experiences of females in talent development research can result in excluding and ineffective talent development systems and sub-optimal experiences for female athletes[52][53][54] .…”

Navigating the winds of change on the smooth sea - The interaction of feedback and emotional disruption on the talent pathway

“…Particularly, the experiences of individual athletes and females as the present sample were all male (cf. Curran et al, 2019). Additionally, although the risk of selfpresentation bias was managed through the building of rapport with participants, there is a risk that they may have sought to manage the interviewer's impression of them.…”